Temple of Minerva Medica (temple)

For the well-preserved ruin from the 4th century, see Temple of Minerva Medica (nymphaeum).

The temple of Minerva Medica (akin to the temple of Apollo Medicus) was a temple in ancient Rome, built on the Esquiline Hill in the republican era (cf. Cic. de div. II.123: sine medico medicinam dabit Minerva, and CIL VI.10133, 30980), though no remains of it have been found. It has since the 17th century been wrongly identified with the ruins of a nymphaeum on a nearby site, on account of the erroneous impression that the Athena Giustiniani had been found in its ruins (HJ 360; LS III.158‑161).

Its position in the Regionary Catalogue, between the campus Viminalis and the temple of Isis Patricia, points to a site in the northern part of Region V, but the discovery of hundreds of votive offerings — on one of which is one of the two inscriptions (30980) — in the via Curva (now the Via Carlo Botta), just west of the via Merulana, may mean that this was its location (BC 1887, 154‑156, 192‑200; 1888, 124‑125; Mitt. 1889, 278; HJ 353; Rosch. II.2989; Cons. 305‑312 and reff.). Some tuff walls, resembling favissae, were also found there.

External links

• Temple